Donald Trump has requested an April 2026 trial date for his federal indictment for 2020 election interference charges connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Video: Trump’s legal team seeks to delay federal election case until April 2026
News
MSNBC
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Start your day right!
Get latest updates and insights delivered to your inbox.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
Bad Bunny accepts the Best Urban Song award for "LA MuDANZA" onstage during the 26th Annual Latin Grammy Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on November 13, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Photo by John Parra/Getty Images for The Latin Recording Academy)
What Bad Bunny Can Teach Us About Leadership, Belonging, and the Power of Place
Nov 29, 2025
Bad Bunny is everywhere, from Spotify’s top charts to sold-out stadiums that pulse like heartbeats. The pride that emanates from la isla de Puerto Rico, with its native son is palpable. The ownership every Puerto Rican, from the island to the diaspora, feels at this moment —over their culture, their identity —is hard to understate.
This sense of belonging and pride is something I explore in my new book, Sentido: Finding Sense and Purpose in Design Leadership. Part memoir, part guide, it reflects on what it means to be Puerto Rican, Nuyorican, and multiethnic — and how that layered identity shapes the way I understand connection, purpose, and presence.
But pride alone doesn’t tell the whole story. What often gets lost in translation for those unfamiliar with Puerto Rico’s history is that the island Bad Bunny represents still grapples with colonial neglect, gentrification, and economic erasure. Much of his music speaks to this, amplifies it, and refuses to let it be ignored. Debí Tirar Más Fotos (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”) is a love letter to the Puerto Rico that was and the Puerto Rico that must remain, just as No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here”) holds the ache of wanting to stay home even when home is under threat.
This is the paradox of visibility and invisibility, of existing within systems designed to erase you.
Puerto Rico’s story is one of complexity and contradiction, a place that holds both joy and grief in equal measure. Like many Spanish words that resist direct translation, uniquely Puerto Rican phrases like La Brega capture that tension perfectly. “The struggle” can be one of joy or of pain; often, it is both.
In Sentido, I write about El Yunque, Puerto Rico’s rainforest, as a living system that resists extraction by regenerating from within. After Hurricane María and near-total devastation, the forest reorganized itself. Roots deepened, and new growth emerged from fallen trunks — nature’s way of remembering. Bad Bunny’s work mirrors that instinct. He turns the spectacle inward, redirecting attention from global fame to local truth. Like El Yunque and the people of Puerto Rico, his art reminds us that the power is in the people. Community and culture endure. Regeneration itself becomes a form of resistance.
Once known as Borikén, home to the Taíno people, the island was claimed by Spain in 1493 and later traded to the United States after the Spanish–American War. Citizenship came in 1917, but not sovereignty.
Puerto Ricans could be drafted to fight wars abroad yet could not vote for the leaders who sent them. The Jones Act still dictates how and from where goods arrive, and how much they cost. The island became a “Commonwealth” in name only: its economy remade to serve others, its flag once outlawed, its people asked to adapt rather than belong.
Colonialism didn’t end; it changed form. Policies like Acts 20 and 22 invite outsiders to profit while locals are priced out of their own neighborhoods. Austerity boards overrule elected officials. After Hurricane María, aid arrived slowly, revealing what power looks like when it decides who is worth saving. And yet, Puerto Rico persists, creating, gathering, remembering. That duality of presence within erasure continues to define it.
In Bad Bunny’s music video for El Apagón (“The Blackout”), there’s a deliberate bait and switch. What begins as a celebration, a pulsing anthem of pride and presence, transforms into a documentary, a love letter, and a warning. It isn’t just about power outages; it’s about power itself, who holds it, who profits from it, and who is left in the dark.
Leadership, as it shows up through Bad Bunny, isn’t hierarchy. It is a shift from power over to the power of projection, a reorientation toward compassion and interdependence. Sharing, not hoarding, resources and thriving. Thriving despite circumstance. His artistry is not extractive but regenerative. It centers community, redistributes power, and creates space for others to grow. Like El Yunque, he reminds us that endurance is not about standing tall, but staying rooted, grounded.
Just as he hosted a three-month residency in San Juan (with the first 30 shows reserved solely for Puerto Rican residents) to infuse the local economy, on the last night, the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, he hosted “una mas,” the finale event that marked the start of a multi-year partnership between Bad Bunny and Amazon aimed at supporting Puerto Rico through initiatives in education, economic development via a “comPRa Local” storefront, and agriculture.
Y ahora. As we prepare to hear him take the Super Bowl stage — and perhaps learn a little more Spanish in the process — Puerto Ricans are once again navigating duality: the pride of global recognition alongside the reality of living in an America that still questions our belonging. The forced removal of our language, the fear of racial profiling, the erasure that persists, all while one of our own stands in full Boricua glory before the world.
To see Benito on the world’s largest stage, performing entirely in Spanish, is a declaration that we don’t have to translate ourselves to be understood. His presence is not assimilation but assertion, a reminder that Puerto Rican identity is not conditional or dependent on mainland recognition. It isn’t something to be performed for approval; it’s lived, embodied, and enduring. In that moment, with the island reflected on the global stage, Benito reminds us that visibility without purpose is vanity, and visibility with integrity is power. For Puerto Rico, that power is not new. It has always been there, steady and alive, pulsing quietly beneath the noise, waiting.
What Bad Bunny Can Teach Us About Leadership, Belonging, and the Power of Place was first published on the Latino News Network and republished with permission.
Alison Rand is a strategic design expert, consultant, thought leader, and writer with a passion for promoting more inclusive operational systems. A born-and-raised New Yorker, Alison’s worldview was shaped from an early age by her multi-ethnic upbringing and exposure to diverse backgrounds and ideas.
This October saw the debut of Alison’s first book, Sentido: Finding Sense and Purpose in Design Leadership, which serves as both a memoir and a professional guidebook.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
Bad Bunny accepts the Best Urban Song award for "LA MuDANZA" onstage during the 26th Annual Latin Grammy Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on November 13, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Photo by John Parra/Getty Images for The Latin Recording Academy)
What Bad Bunny Can Teach Us About Leadership, Belonging, and the Power of Place
Nov 29, 2025
Bad Bunny is everywhere, from Spotify’s top charts to sold-out stadiums that pulse like heartbeats. The pride that emanates from la isla de Puerto Rico, with its native son is palpable. The ownership every Puerto Rican, from the island to the diaspora, feels at this moment —over their culture, their identity —is hard to understate.
This sense of belonging and pride is something I explore in my new book, Sentido: Finding Sense and Purpose in Design Leadership. Part memoir, part guide, it reflects on what it means to be Puerto Rican, Nuyorican, and multiethnic — and how that layered identity shapes the way I understand connection, purpose, and presence.
But pride alone doesn’t tell the whole story. What often gets lost in translation for those unfamiliar with Puerto Rico’s history is that the island Bad Bunny represents still grapples with colonial neglect, gentrification, and economic erasure. Much of his music speaks to this, amplifies it, and refuses to let it be ignored. Debí Tirar Más Fotos (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”) is a love letter to the Puerto Rico that was and the Puerto Rico that must remain, just as No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here”) holds the ache of wanting to stay home even when home is under threat.
This is the paradox of visibility and invisibility, of existing within systems designed to erase you.
Puerto Rico’s story is one of complexity and contradiction, a place that holds both joy and grief in equal measure. Like many Spanish words that resist direct translation, uniquely Puerto Rican phrases like La Brega capture that tension perfectly. “The struggle” can be one of joy or of pain; often, it is both.
In Sentido, I write about El Yunque, Puerto Rico’s rainforest, as a living system that resists extraction by regenerating from within. After Hurricane María and near-total devastation, the forest reorganized itself. Roots deepened, and new growth emerged from fallen trunks — nature’s way of remembering. Bad Bunny’s work mirrors that instinct. He turns the spectacle inward, redirecting attention from global fame to local truth. Like El Yunque and the people of Puerto Rico, his art reminds us that the power is in the people. Community and culture endure. Regeneration itself becomes a form of resistance.
Once known as Borikén, home to the Taíno people, the island was claimed by Spain in 1493 and later traded to the United States after the Spanish–American War. Citizenship came in 1917, but not sovereignty.
Puerto Ricans could be drafted to fight wars abroad yet could not vote for the leaders who sent them. The Jones Act still dictates how and from where goods arrive, and how much they cost. The island became a “Commonwealth” in name only: its economy remade to serve others, its flag once outlawed, its people asked to adapt rather than belong.
Colonialism didn’t end; it changed form. Policies like Acts 20 and 22 invite outsiders to profit while locals are priced out of their own neighborhoods. Austerity boards overrule elected officials. After Hurricane María, aid arrived slowly, revealing what power looks like when it decides who is worth saving. And yet, Puerto Rico persists, creating, gathering, remembering. That duality of presence within erasure continues to define it.
In Bad Bunny’s music video for El Apagón (“The Blackout”), there’s a deliberate bait and switch. What begins as a celebration, a pulsing anthem of pride and presence, transforms into a documentary, a love letter, and a warning. It isn’t just about power outages; it’s about power itself, who holds it, who profits from it, and who is left in the dark.
Leadership, as it shows up through Bad Bunny, isn’t hierarchy. It is a shift from power over to the power of projection, a reorientation toward compassion and interdependence. Sharing, not hoarding, resources and thriving. Thriving despite circumstance. His artistry is not extractive but regenerative. It centers community, redistributes power, and creates space for others to grow. Like El Yunque, he reminds us that endurance is not about standing tall, but staying rooted, grounded.
Just as he hosted a three-month residency in San Juan (with the first 30 shows reserved solely for Puerto Rican residents) to infuse the local economy, on the last night, the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, he hosted “una mas,” the finale event that marked the start of a multi-year partnership between Bad Bunny and Amazon aimed at supporting Puerto Rico through initiatives in education, economic development via a “comPRa Local” storefront, and agriculture.
Y ahora. As we prepare to hear him take the Super Bowl stage — and perhaps learn a little more Spanish in the process — Puerto Ricans are once again navigating duality: the pride of global recognition alongside the reality of living in an America that still questions our belonging. The forced removal of our language, the fear of racial profiling, the erasure that persists, all while one of our own stands in full Boricua glory before the world.
To see Benito on the world’s largest stage, performing entirely in Spanish, is a declaration that we don’t have to translate ourselves to be understood. His presence is not assimilation but assertion, a reminder that Puerto Rican identity is not conditional or dependent on mainland recognition. It isn’t something to be performed for approval; it’s lived, embodied, and enduring. In that moment, with the island reflected on the global stage, Benito reminds us that visibility without purpose is vanity, and visibility with integrity is power. For Puerto Rico, that power is not new. It has always been there, steady and alive, pulsing quietly beneath the noise, waiting.
What Bad Bunny Can Teach Us About Leadership, Belonging, and the Power of Place was first published on the Latino News Network and republished with permission.
Alison Rand is a strategic design expert, consultant, thought leader, and writer with a passion for promoting more inclusive operational systems. A born-and-raised New Yorker, Alison’s worldview was shaped from an early age by her multi-ethnic upbringing and exposure to diverse backgrounds and ideas.
This October saw the debut of Alison’s first book, Sentido: Finding Sense and Purpose in Design Leadership, which serves as both a memoir and a professional guidebook.
Keep ReadingShow less
person using black laptop computer
Photo by Kanchanara on Unsplash
Trump's Deregulation Lure: A Wage Squeeze for the Global South
Nov 28, 2025
When Colm Kelleher, chairman of UBS, sat down with Scott Bessent in recent months to discuss uprooting the bank's headquarters from Zurich to New York, it was more than corporate maneuvering. It was a signal flare for the financial world under Donald Trump's second term. Bessent promised a regulatory bonfire that could slash compliance costs and open the floodgates for American finance. The reported talks underscore a broader shift: the United States is apparently positioning itself as the unassailable hub of global capital, drawing in institutions like UBS with tax breaks and lighter oversight. Yet this allure comes at a steep price for emerging markets, where wage growth is already fragile. What looks like a boom for American workers masks a quiet trap, one that could deepen the divide between rich nations and the rest.
Bessent's vision, laid out in private conversations and public hints, paints a picture of American exceptionalism reborn. He has warned of a "perfect storm" of inherited inflation and supply disruptions from the Biden years, now to be tamed by aggressive deregulation and targeted tariffs. In one recent interview, he blamed soaring beef prices on a mix of migrant-driven cattle issues and lingering policy failures, framing Trump's agenda as the corrective force. The rhetoric is folksy, but the policy is sharp: roll back rules that hobble banks, lure foreign firms stateside, and shield domestic industries with import duties. UBS's flirtation with relocation fits neatly here. Across the Atlantic, Trump offers relief: no more endless stress tests, faster mergers, and a friendlier tax code. If UBS moves, it could save hundreds of millions annually in regulatory overhead, funneling those gains into higher bonuses for its New York traders.
This is not isolated. Other European lenders are weighing similar shifts. The draw is clear: America's labor market, bolstered by reshoring, promises wage hikes for skilled workers in finance and tech. Entry-level analysts in Manhattan could see annual raises of 5 to 7 percent, outpacing inflation, as firms consolidate operations. Trump's team projects this will add 1.5 million jobs by mid-2026, many in high-wage sectors. Bessent, a hedge fund veteran who made his fortune betting on currency swings, sees it as a virtuous cycle: more capital inflows mean more lending, more investment, and fatter paychecks for the middle class.
But turn the lens southward, to the factories of Vietnam, the call centers of India, and the assembly lines of Mexico. Here, the same policies spell stagnation. Trump's tariffs, announced in early November and partially rolled back on commodities like beef and coffee just days ago to ease domestic inflation, still target manufactured goods with duties of 10 to 20 percent. The exemptions are tactical, aimed at grocery bills, but the core assault on electronics, autos, and textiles remains. Emerging markets, which supply 40 percent of U.S. imports in these categories, are set to take a direct hit. Early modelling by trade economists suggests significant downside risk to electronics exporters such as Vietnam. That translates to lost orders, idle workers, and frozen wages. Factory hands in Hanoi, earning around $300 a month, will not see the 3 percent gains economists once forecast; instead, vulnerable export hubs risk stagnation or decline if orders fall
India tells a starker story. Its IT services sector, which employs 5 million and fuels middle-class dreams, depends on U.S. outsourcing deals. Tariffs on components could inflate costs by 8 percent, prompting clients like JPMorgan to pull back. Wages in Bengaluru, stagnant at 4 percent growth since the pandemic, may flatline entirely. Mexico, Trump's neighbor and largest trading partner, faces the cruelest irony. Nearshoring boomed under Biden, with $35 billion in new factories. Now, 25 percent border duties threaten to unwind that. Maquiladora workers in Tijuana, averaging $450 monthly, could see real wages erode by 5 percent as U.S. buyers seek alternatives in the heartland.
This is the mirage: U.S. growth at the expense of emerging markets. Trump's plan, for all its talk of fair trade, accelerates deglobalization. Supply chains, painstakingly woven over decades, will fray as firms chase the lowest-risk path. The Atlantic Council tracks over 50 tariff actions since the inauguration, each chipping away at cross-border flows. J.P. Morgan Research now cuts its 2025 global growth forecast to 2.7 percent, with emerging economies bearing the brunt at 3.9 percent, down from 4.5 percent. Wages follow suit. While American finance swells, the global south's labor surplus grows, suppressing pay in export hubs. The International Labour Organization warns of a "lost decade" for developing nations if trade volumes drop 10 percent, as projected. Inequality widens not just within countries, but between them, echoing the K-shaped recovery we saw post-COVID: the top accelerates, the base stalls.
Bessent and his peers may dismiss this as collateral, but Americans are not powerless. Voters, consumers, and civic actors can exert pressure on Congress and the administration to ensure that trade policies and deregulation take global labor impacts into account, whether through public letters, petitions, or targeted campaigns. Citizens can influence corporate behavior by favoring companies that maintain fair labor practices abroad and by holding firms accountable for their supply-chain ethics. Engagement with NGOs and civic groups that monitor U.S. trade decisions offers another avenue to shape outcomes. In contrast, advocacy for multilateral frameworks promoting fair wages and sustainable trade- through U.S.-based organizations and think tanks - can reinforce American leadership and credibility. These efforts not only support workers abroad but also protect the United States’ legitimacy in the global economy, reducing the risk that its firms and policies provoke backlash.
Bessent's perfect storm is no inheritance from Biden. It is a deliberate gale, one that lifts American sails while grounding ships in distant ports. UBS may thrive in New York, but the workers it leaves behind in Zurich, and those it displaces in Asia, will pay the toll. Global finance cannot afford such zero-sum games. The storm breaks soon; better to seek shelter together than watch the divide grow.
Imran Khalid is a physician, geostrategic analyst, and freelance writer.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More
A deep look at how "All in the Family" remains a striking mirror of American politics, class tensions, and cultural manipulation—proving its relevance decades later.
All in This American Family
There are a few shows that have aged as eerily well as All in the Family.
It’s not just that it’s still funny and has the feel not of a sit-com, but of unpretentious, working-class theatre. It’s that, decades later, it remains one of the clearest windows into the American psyche. Archie Bunker’s living room has been, as it were, a small stage on which the country has been working through the same contradictions, anxieties, and unresolved traumas that still shape our politics today. The manipulation of the working class, the pitting of neighbor against neighbor, the scapegoating of the vulnerable, the quiet cruelties baked into everyday life—all of it is still here with us. We like to reassure ourselves that we’ve progressed since the early 1970s, but watching the show now forces an unsettling recognition: The structural forces that shaped Archie’s world have barely budged. The same tactics of distraction and division deployed by elites back then are still deployed now, except more efficiently, more sleekly.
Archie himself is the perfect vessel for this continuity. He is bigoted, blustery, reactive, but he is also wounded, anxious, and constantly misled by forces above and beyond him. Norman Lear created Archie not as a monster to be hated (Lear’s genius was to make Archie lovable despite his loathsome stands), but as a man trapped by the political economy of his era: A union worker who feels his country slipping away, yet cannot see the hands that are actually moving it. His anger leaks sideways, onto immigrants, women, “hippies,” and anyone with less power than he has. The real villains—the wealthy, the connected, the manufacturers of grievance—remain safely and comfortably offscreen. That’s part of the show’s key insight: It reveals how elites thrive by making sure working people turn their frustrations against each other rather than upward.
Edith, often dismissed as naive or scatterbrained, functions as the show’s quiet moral center. Her compassion exposes the emotional void in Archie’s worldview and, in doing so, highlights the costs of the divisions that powerful interests cultivate. Meanwhile, Mike the “Meathead” represents a generation trying to break free from those divisions but often trapped in its own loud self-righteousness. Their clashes are not just family arguments but collisions between competing visions of America’s future. And those visions, tellingly, have yet to resolve themselves.
The political context of the show only sharpens its relevance. Premiering in 1971, All in the Family emerged during the Nixon years, when the “Silent Majority” strategy was weaponizing racial resentment, cultural panic, and working-class anxiety to cement power. Archie was a fictional embodiment of the very demographic Nixon sought to mobilize and manipulate. The show exposed, often bluntly, how economic insecurity was being rerouted into cultural hostility. Watching the show today, it’s impossible to miss how closely that logic mirrors the present, from right-wing media ecosystems to politicians who openly rely on stoking grievances rather than addressing root causes.
What makes the show unsettling today is that its satire feels less like a relic and more like a mirror. The demagogic impulses it spotlighted have simply found new platforms. The working-class anger it dramatized has been harvested by political operatives who, like their 1970s predecessors, depend on division to maintain power. The very cultural debates that fueled Archie’s tirades — about immigration, gender roles, race, and national identity—are still being used as tools to distract from wealth concentration and political manipulation.
If anything, the divisions are sharper now because the mechanisms of manipulation are more sophisticated, for much has been learned by The Machine. The same emotional raw material Lear mined for comedy is now algorithmically optimized for outrage. The same social fractures that played out around Archie’s kitchen table now play out on a scale he couldn’t have imagined. But the underlying dynamics haven’t changed at all.
That is why All in the Family feels so contemporary. The country Lear dissected never healed or meaningfully evolved: It simply changed wardrobe. The tensions, prejudices, and insecurities remain, not because individuals failed to grow but because the economic and political forces that thrive on division have only become more entrenched. Until we confront the political economy that kept Archie and Michael locked in an endless loop of circular bickering, the show will remain painfully relevant for another fifty years.
Ahmed Bouzid is the co-founder of The True Representation Movement.